Alex comes up to my locker as usual. He squeezes between me and Stew and launches into the laundry list of everything I’ve missed in the past week, school gossip wise. “Hey, I’m really glad you’re back,” he goes. “I’ve been having these weird conversations with Cindy and it’s going pretty well, I mean, weird, but pretty good, right? And I wonder what you think, you know, I mean about me asking her out and everything, but then of course there’s Crystal who’s always standing right there with her, giving me the stink eye, and maybe you could fend her off this time while I talk to Cindy, and see if she, you know…”
I stare into the green metal abyss, at the fishhooks that are supposed to be holding up my jacket, which I’m still wearing. I shrug out of it and hang it inside.
“Hey, man,” Alex says. “How you holding up?”
I slam my locker. “What does that even mean?” People keep saying it to me and I don’t know how to respond.
Alex flinches backward, bumping into Stew, who doesn’t seem to notice. “I don’t know,” he says. “It’s just what you say.”
“Sorry,” I mutter. I pinch the bridge of my nose as if it’s going to help something.
“It’s okay,” he says.
“Maybe I should just go back home.”
Alex groans. “No. You have to stay, man. I need you. This whole thing with Cindy is killing me. Oh, crap. I shouldn’t say things like ‘killing me,’ huh? I’m such a dick. I’m really sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“I feel really bad now.”
“Don’t. It’s not like what you say is gonna make it worse.”
He runs his hand through his hair. “Well, just give me a little time, and I’m sure I can come up with something. You know I can’t keep my trap shut. I’ve finally perfected exactly how wide I need to open it to fit in my foot.” He lifts up his leg really high.
I can’t help but smile. “Finally. You nailed it. It’s taken you years.”
Alex settles a hand on my shoulder. “Seriously, you’re like my brother,” he says. “You know, so whatever I can do.”
The little surge in my chest is full of things. I’m grateful, because he is a good friend, even when I’m not treating him like it. I’m pissed, because he’s not my brother; I don’t have a brother. I had a sister, but now I don’t and the vacuum of that is everywhere.
“Okay.”
We walk in silence down the hallway toward my first-period class.
“Just be normal,” I tell him. “Say ridiculous crap.”
He looks offended. “Why do you gotta diminish me, man? Every raindrop off this tongue is solid gold.”
“You’re mixing metaphors again.”
“Mix Master Flash,” he says. “Wikka-wikka,” which is supposed to be the sound of a DJ mixing a turntable.
I roll my eyes. “You’re a freak.”
“Right back at ya.” We slap hands and bump shoulders and then peel off our separate ways to head to class.